A well suggests something that sustains a community across changing circumstances. Consider both your access to support and your part in maintaining it.
Written for reflection. This is neither a translation nor a personal prediction.
In ancient times, people dug wells to obtain water to nourish humanity; therefore, the image of the Well became a hexagram symbol used by the ancients to metaphorically describe the cultivation of virtue. The Hexagram Jing possesses the merit of cultivating virtue and nourishing the people, remaining unchanged from beginning to end, and providing for things without limit, as stated in the hexagram statement: “The village may be changed, but the well remains unchanged.” In other words, while villages may change, virtue cannot change; thus, the Zhengyi states: “Nourishing things without limit, nothing surpasses the Well.”
Yang Tiancai and Zhang Shanwen. Zhouyi (The Book of Changes) (2011), source-file page 440. Machine-translated English draft; not yet scholar-reviewed. This is commentary, not a new prediction.
Read the chapter & page references ↗The lower trigram contributes entering and gentle penetration; the upper contributes depth and difficulty. These qualities belong to one configuration, not two separate verdicts. Consider how they might support, interrupt or place limits on one another. This comparison is a modern learning exercise informed by the traditional trigram vocabulary, not a replacement translation of the hexagram’s Judgment.
Wind: Where would patient communication or a small repeated effort be more effective? Water: What risk can you actually identify, and what preparation or support would help? You may find that neither image fits; the question and your actual circumstances remain more important than forcing a match.
Source-led editorial summaries, not literal translations or predictions. Selected passages have been compared with Chinese OCR; the books still await scholarly review.
Zhang Shanwen distinguishes a trigram’s natural image from its symbolic quality. Heaven, earth, thunder, wind, water, fire, mountain and lake are starting images; their applications depend on context, rather than on a literal resemblance to the object.
The original scan table and surrounding paragraph were also visually checked. The draft adds an unreliable bracketed gloss to Xun; our editorial label uses entering or gentle penetration, not the bracketed ‘human beings’. The preserved page is unchanged.
Dictionary of the Zhou Changes, Revised Edition · source page 113 →Liu Dajun illustrates interpretation through configuration: Meng places water or danger below mountain or stopping; Xu places strength below water or danger ahead. The examples show why combining images is more useful than reading each name in isolation.
These are the author’s examples, not a universal inside/outside psychological formula. His separate argument about the dating of the commentaries is not adopted as settled consensus.
Introduction to the Zhou Changes, Expanded Edition · source page 27 →Lin Zhongjun distinguishes the line patterns from the things they represent. In a reading, the lines tell you which pattern you drew; images such as water or a mountain give you a way to think about it. An image does not have to describe your situation literally to help you ask a useful question.
The selected paragraph was compared with Chinese OCR and the original scan. The practical application is our editorial explanation, not a claim that an image establishes facts about the customer. The page’s list of later interpretive techniques does not enable those techniques on the website.
History of Image-and-Number Learning in the Zhou Changes, Volume I: Pre-Qin, Han, and Tang · source page 5 →Lin Zhongjun quotes Lai Zhide comparing images to mirrors: they can hold more than one meaning without being literal records of events. For your question, look for what the image helps you notice. You can take a helpful insight without treating every detail as something that must happen.
The quoted mirror comparison was checked against the scan. The English opening mishandles a sentence continued from source page 68; that wording is not used here. The draft’s ‘Great Plan’ gloss for Yumo is also not relied on. This summarizes Lai’s approach, not an agreed rule of every school.
History of Image-and-Number Learning in the Zhou Changes, Volume III: Ming and Qing · source page 69 →